missiletech
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- Nov 8, 2015
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Thanks for your advice Brundog and ten80. I hadn’t considered that valid point. Things are challenging over here. I live on the top two floors of an 8 story apartment. The municipal water pressure fluctuates a lot and disappears altogether for hours at a time. Usually on weekends. My cunning plan was to use an old boil kettle for a water reservoir. I sourced an RV pump with the recommended specs and installed it on my stand. The pump manufacturer calls for a min 10 mm output line. I kinda looked around my brewery for spare parts that I thought would work. The output hose that I’m trying now is kegging gas line so it’s not quite 10 mm ID. I think that is causing my cheap RV pump to oscillate between on and off really quickly. To remedy that, I was thinking of adding an RV water pressure accumulator tank. That would go well with your advice about using a smaller lighter line to the condenser. Any thoughts? Thanks CNice job @Charlie139 . One comment that might help with mods over time... you do not need much feed water - a small tube (1/4" / 6mm OD... even 1/8" / 3mm) would provide enough flow.
Thanks ten80. I’m looking into a remedy that will incorporate your advice. Greatly appreciated. CAgreed, and running a garden hose to your steam condenser really adds a lot of weight to the kettle lid. It's much easier to manage a very small 1/4" hose.
You would need a high pressure/low flow pump which can run nearly dead-headed for long periods of time. That pump likely isn't it - and probably has a cut-off switch for high pressure, hence the oscillation.
Think about when you first learned about the progressive losses of volume in an all grain system. You learned that the boil off rate was primarily a result, not a driven goal to reach. Imagine that brewing with the SteamSlayer is a new system where you have to discover the boil off rate. You dial in your boil intensity to keep the foam from filling the entire headspace (and potentially flushing down the waste line) and then measure the boil off rate. Now integrate that new number into your recipe calculations henceforth.
Ok. I guess I am just hoping that I can dial it in closer I guess. Going to be pretty challenging on high gravity beers. Before the steamslayer i was boiling off 1.5 gph at 77% power. This brew, I boiled off just under .5 gph at 50% power. I only gained 3 gravity points which isn't ideal.
On 5 or 10 gallon systems, how many gravity points are other people here gaining? I expected given the descriptions from others here to cut my boil off in half, not to under a third.
I will say this though.. there was no steam. It was slayed. A bit of a challenge using my Hydra imersion chiller though. I hadn't thought about that. No way to use it as intended, being sanitized for last 10 min of boil. You also have to be damn careful not to scald your face with steam lifting the kettle lid to add hops. New protocols.
I've been challenging the long standing proposition that chillers need to ride in the boil for that long anyway. I literally put my chiller in after I cut the power and have been doing that for 8 years. What do folks think is living on the chiller that needs to boil for that long to kill?
.5 gallons is pretty low. I start my boil at 7.5 gallons and boil down to 6.5 before chilling. I boil at 29-30% output. I don't have an explanation as to your experience.
Largely it is going to depend on what your water pressure and average temperature is. Lower water pressure and/or higher water temp, go with the 9. Higher water pressure and/or lower water temp, go with the 6. Where I live, I have about 70psi and wintertime water temps get into the 40s and summer temps into the high 70s. Due to higher pressure and average temp in the high 50s, I can get away with the 6gph.
How is the best / easiest way to tell if you need to use the 6 gph or the 9 gph spray nozzle?
Thanks
I posted the post where I linked the link. It seems oddly formatted here but if you click it, it will take you to the post with the link.
OK, here is the direct link for those preferring the easy button: Steam Condenser calculations public.xlsx
Overall... way too much time on my hands... I should be applying to a Lockheed job that was offered to me but I'm not in a hurry to work on missiles... again.
Don't remember seeing it asked before:
I don't really want to leave the condenser cantilevered off the thin Foundry lid. Was thinking of clamping the condenser along the wall and using barbed fittings with silicone tubing to go from the lid to the condenser. Think 1/2" tubing would be too small over <2' travel?
I am using the 9gph nozzle but getting tons of steam out the hose end.
Don't remember seeing it asked before:
I don't really want to leave the condenser cantilevered off the thin Foundry lid. Was thinking of clamping the condenser along the wall and using barbed fittings with silicone tubing to go from the lid to the condenser. Think 1/2" tubing would be too small over <2' travel?
I am using the 9gph nozzle but getting tons of steam out the hose end.
May as well give it a shot! Already have the steam slayer, just need a couple more TC fittings.It will work to some degree... just can't claim its efficacy compared to the knowledge base we have so far. The mixing chamber size is most critical, but if its feed is restricted, then the performance will reduce to some unknown amount. Try it?
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